Tommye Blount

I

What a lucky beast I am,

when he cleans up nice

and nicks his perfect face.

I get to lick that face,

when he lets me.

In the cut’s opening

I get a taste of him

from the inside

out, which is all I have

ever wanted,

to be cell-close

to him. Praise the razor’s

overzealous arm;

the ease

with which it finds tenderness

in this man.

Tommey, or however you spell your name, I

mean what I say. Like how them white boys think

Whitney or somebody’s going to do The Lady. Nu-uh, I

have to be her in your little poem. Boy, I could almost

smack your face—who do you think you are? Look,

only I have the pipes to speak for The Lady. Good

drag is not just a dress and a wig. You got to put this in

The Lady’s words right. Because she, above anything,

is my livelihood. Chile, I’m a kept woman as long as she lets

me keep this roof I’m under; my pans full of meat. Try

to be her and you will fail. I’ve got years on

you, Sugar Lump. You can’t just go pull something

out of a closet. Only I can make good from all her ugly.

Honey, what would a thinner man know of hunger,
I mean to be forever, for always in hunger.

When my stomach has had enough, when my body goes quiet,
I let my mouth take over. It’s a calling, this hunger

to sing for a love I’m too ashamed to want for myself, so I 
practice; the pitch has to be right to sing the hunger

of other lovers, a take on a take, a rendition no one has heard
before, with this voice I wed the lives of others. A hunger

to set the mood—I make them turn the lights off,
turn them on. A gift, this first instrument of hunger;

this tenor. I can feel it in my body, all 300 pounds of me. 
You’re never lonely when you’re a man, who knows hunger

like I do, as big as two men holding on so tight that you would think 
there is only one. There are two of me, both of us hungry

for the stage. Look at how the spotlight searches for me, it can’t keep up. 
They chant my name; want more of me. Who am I to let them starve?